Want to see the 2027 ‘eclipse of the century?’ Travel tips from a new astrotourist | Canada Voices

First, the hard truth: If you’re looking to get a jump on planning travel for the “eclipse of the century,” on Aug. 2, 2027, when the moon will fully obscure the sun for more than six minutes, you’re already late. Lodgings along the eclipse path in North Africa and the Middle East are nearly sold out. Totality will peak at six minutes and 23 seconds near Luxor, Egypt, making this the longest total solar eclipse until 2114.

But “late” doesn’t mean you’ve missed out. I learned this in August when I travelled to Spain, with my wife, Cathleen, and 17-year-old son, Kai, to witness this year’s solar eclipse, a trip I planned only two months in advance.

Last-minute scrambling

After hearing that the ancient city of León in northwest Spain was the ideal spot to catch this spectacle, owing to the confluence of totality time (one minute and 45 seconds) and low risk of clouds, I found non-stop flights from where we live to Madrid and began building an eight-day itinerary that would take us from Spain’s capital to the northern coast and mountains, then returning inland to León for eclipse day and back to Madrid to fly home.

Alas, the few remaining rooms in León for the night of the eclipse were prohibitively expensive – US$1,000 and up. I didn’t want to stay north of León, which would have added to an already daunting departure-day drive, so I was delighted to snag a reasonably priced room 130 kilometres south of León in the Zamora Palacio del Duero hotel, built onto a 14^th-century convent in Zamora, a medieval town with the most Romanesque churches (24) of any European city.

I then worked backward along our planned route. A hispanophile friend had suggested a few seaside villages in the autonomous principality of Asturias, in northern Spain. But all of those were sold out because of the double pressure of eclipse tourists and Spaniards escaping August heat in the big cities. My cortisol levels rose with each “no vacancy,” until I found an Airbnb in a hamlet called Bañugues, north of the town of Luanco. The reviews were excellent, and the photos showed people on a bluff above the sea – enough to sway me.

Lodging was similarly scarce around Picos de Europa National Park, where the government-run lodge my friend had recommended had been sold out for months. We settled for a pricey room in the over-touristed town of Cangas de Onís. Lastly, I found a rental car I could pick up in central Madrid and drop at the airport.

Happy surprises

But as often happens in life, we found joy in the adjustments: the slow-cooked cod at La Taberna de Paula, a Madrid restaurant owned by a retired lawyer with eyes that carried all the sadness and hope of the human condition; the trails of Bañugues, where walkers and mountain bikers soaked in forever views of the jigsawed coast; the empty, black sand beach below Viodo, where Kai wandered out to the tide pools and for 45 minutes became our little boy again, captivated by the tiny life most adults fail to notice.

While hiking the Ruta de Cares in Picos de Europa, with granite spires erupting toward the cobalt sky, we met Natasha Adamus, 24, a Canadian living in Poland whose father had planned this eclipse chase trip a year in advance.

“He was so moved by the last eclipse in Canada. He cried telling me about it,” she said. “He’s been checking the weather every 15 minutes to make sure we find a good place for this one.”

In contrast, a twentysomething guy in tattered shorts and a tie-dye shirt, up from Lisbon with his girlfriend, said they’d decided “a couple days ago” to bolt north for the event and had rented a camper van to surmount the last-minute lodging challenge.

At the end of my hike, parched and sun-wracked, I found Norman Stranpach, from Washington state, who saw his first eclipse in 1973 in Nova Scotia, complete with what he called a “360-degree sunset” and bright stars during totality. He had started planning this trip in 2025.

“For me it’s seeing new places, the social interaction with others with the same interest, the opportunity to see the same people at the next eclipse,” he said.

In this case, he had scouted a mountainside view between converging rock spires, though when I checked in with him an hour after the eclipse, he had pivoted to a beach in Santander, along with at least 1,000 other people, where clouds and haze from a burgeoning wildfire had blotted out their view. He was sanguine about the letdown, already looking forward to 2027.

Eclipse day win

On the night before the eclipse, I asked Claude AI to pinpoint a viewing spot in or near León that would minimize the risk of traffic on our ensuing drive to Zamora.

After some stark misfires by the AI program (it placed city parks that were hosting viewing parties on the wrong side of León), it suggested the open farmland west of town, stating, “You can pull off onto any farm track just outside town and have open fields in every direction, and it’s still close enough to the A-66 that your run to Zamora afterward is trivial.”

We arrived in this area with five hours to spare, encountering just one other party, a German family also steered here by AI. We settled into the agrarian silence, read our books and waited.

Periodically another vehicle would rumble past but, interestingly, they all kept going. So just before the eclipse started, we drove out the road another half kilometre to find 25 people gathered on a bluff above a gentle valley with wide open views. Many had professional camera gear, which I took as validation that we were, indeed, well-positioned.

As one who typically plans vacations around outdoor recreation, this culmination of our trip at first felt odd to me, like flying across the ocean to watch a short film with strangers. But when the last rind of sun blinked behind the moon, enveloping the farm in a mystical light – and Kai’s face in amazement – I understood.

Even before we wheeled into Zamora, walked its narrow cobblestone streets and sat down for a midnight beer at a bustling church-side café, I had vowed to start planning for August, 2027, the day I arrived home.

If you go

For the eclipse on Aug. 2, 2027, check the for-profit National Eclipse Website, which lists tours in different countries. If you’re willing to compromise on the duration of totality and/or submit to a multihour drive on eclipse day, you can still find lodging within striking distance of A-list spots. For example, from Rabat, Morocco, you’d have a 2½-hour drive north to Had Al Gharbia, which will experience nearly five minutes of totality, more than double the peak totality of the 2026 eclipse.

The Eclipse Navigator app is an excellent resource for seeing eclipse paths, totality time in precise locations, and more.

And while this will indeed be a once-in-a-lifetime event, full solar eclipses occur on a regular basis, so you can start planning now for 2028 (Australia!) and beyond.